


Goodbye

by closemyeyesandleap



Series: By Her Grave [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant (with possible liberties taken with location), Cemetery, Dark, Depression, F/M, Gen, Guilt, Morbid, Referenced Staticquake, S3-S4 hiatus, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 12:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15315165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: Daisy visits Jiaying’s grave while on the run from SHIELD and struggles with the ghosts of her past.





	Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> TWs for suicidal ideation and depression.  
> Please exercise extreme caution as some of Daisy's emotions/thoughts are very dark and visceral. 
> 
> This work takes place a year after my previous story in this collection, "In Loving Memory." While you don't have to read "In Loving Memory" first, it's helpful because Daisy remembers the events of that story in this one.

This was a mistake. 

Daisy knew the moment she stepped into the dry grass of the cemetery. She glanced around her, half expecting assailants or a SHIELD tactical team to burst from the trees behind her. But there was nothing. 

Despite the growing sense of dread that threatened to overwhelm her, Daisy felt her body moving forward into the cemetery as if compelled by an outside force. The sensation was so familiar, the implications so terrifying, that her lungs turned to ice within her. Daisy forced her feet to stop and felt relief briefly wash over her, though the dread lay thick and unmoving beneath. For a second, she had wondered—was she back under his control again?

But no. She was alone in the cemetery, and she was here by choice. In a way.

Daisy didn’t know why she had come to her mother’s grave now, after more than a year. She hadn’t visited during the chaotic months following the spread of the terrigen, nor when the team flew around the world combatting Hydra and encountering increasing numbers of Inhumans. Even during her first few months away from SHIELD, she had lost herself in her quest to defeat the Watchdogs and never thought to take a moment to stop, contemplate, and grieve old losses.

No time—not when the new losses were so raw.

As Daisy crept up on the grave marker bearing the name _Jiaying Johnson_ , barely visible in the dim light from a row of lampposts in the distance, the realization dawned on her. 

She had come to say goodbye. 

Daisy felt it in her bones, in the numbness in her arms that was only vanquished by the rush of her powers, in the thin layer of burnt hair that still emitted an ashy odor from a near-miss explosion, in the _whoosh_ of a bullet passing inches from her head that still echoed in her ears. It was almost over. 

One day—one day soon—her time would be up. Daisy sensed death, that specter that she had evaded so many times, drawing nearer and nearer to her in every fight, every escape.

Why had she come to Milwaukee? The small lump in her pocket provided part of the answer. If the end was indeed as close as she sensed—as she craved—it was time to fulfill her promises. Daisy fiddled with the carved wooden bird in her pocket. 

Charles' voice seemed to echo in the wind around the cemetery, perhaps blowing up as a memory from behind a gravestone. _She will always need protection. I was hoping… you could help._

Daisy knew that a move and a few hundred thousand dollars were hardly the kind of protection that Charles had begged for his daughter. It wasn’t what she had intended to provide when she had whispered, _I’ll protect her. I promise._ But it was all she could do. The weight of her guilt pressed down on her shoulders, and she knelt by the grave. 

Her presence was poison. Robin would be safer far from Daisy, far from SHIELD. At least here, Robin and Polly would have the opportunity to have a new life, and Daisy could attempt to fulfill another promise.

She felt the ghost of Cal, of the man he used to be, the man wiped from existence by electrical probes and doctors, swirling around her, joining Charles. _I was hoping you might come visit, once in a while._

She had sworn, _I will, I promise._

Daisy had never returned, not since the day, over a year before, when she and Coulson had buried Jiaying. And now, she dared not approach the man who had been her father. She did not want to taint his naive optimism with her darkness. Perhaps by directing Polly and Robin in his direction, she was ensuring that he wasn’t alone. Not really.

It was an insufficient gesture, she knew, yet it was all she could do.

The lights of the lampposts on the edge of the cemetery flickered as one stuttered and died. Daisy’s head spun around before she could stop herself, before she could apply reason to the traitorous flash of hope that ran through her body at the electrical disturbance.

The cemetery remained empty. 

An outage would always just be an outage. Lincoln was gone. He was never coming back. 

Daisy reached out, hoping to feel his presence in the way she felt Charles and Cal there at the grave, but there was nothing. Lincoln remained unreachable, as if he had never existed. The tightness in throat grew until she choked out a sob. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked back and forth on the grass, her left foot occasionally brushing her mother’s grave marker, as silent sobs tore her apart.

_Gone._

_Gone._

_Gone._

_Gone._

Of course he wasn’t there. Without a body to bury, his spirit remained unreachable. Like the light of the lamppost, he was just a flash of light that flickered and died in the emptiness of space.

When her sobs finally slowed and the numbness crept over her body again, Daisy returned her blurred gaze to her mother’s grave. A year before when she had come with Coulson to bury Jiaying, she had felt conflicted, torn between her sense of loss over the maternal love she had felt for an instant and the ruthless killer into which her mother had transformed.

Now, Daisy didn’t feel conflicted, not anymore. Nor did she feel the aura of warmth that had always accompanied the idea of her biological mother, before she discovered who she was. 

She felt nothing but a creeping sense of shame.

“We’re not that different, are we?” Daisy muttered. She remember Coulson, on the day of the burial, telling her that she carried her parents inside her. If only he had known how right he was. Perhaps he would have left her there, in that moment, driven off in Lola. Daisy shook her head. Coulson was stubborn. Even if he had seen the darkness lurking in that moment, he wouldn’t have run away.

He should have.

Coulson had pointed out that she had her father’s compassion and her mother’s potential for leadership. What he hadn’t seen––or hadn’t wanted to see—were the other similarities. The violence. The weakness.

 _Your mother isn’t leading our people. She’s_ mis _leading them. It’s you who are destined to lead._

She felt the haunting echo of Raina’s voice around her, another ghost joining the pantheon of the dead. She scoffed. Destined to lead? 

Daisy saw herself kneeling before Hive, begging to be taken back, to return to the bliss of not thinking or feeling, of moving forward with a common goal and purpose. Wave after wave of shame washed over her. 

At least her mother had led the Inhumans well, in the isolation of Afterlife. Jiaying’s only failing was prioritizing revenge over that same protection when conflict reached their borders.

Daisy, on the other hand, had led the Inhumans under her care into a trap. Even before that, even before him, she had failed to protect them from Lash, from the ATCU.

She would not fail them again. She narrowed her eyes and wiped away any last vestiges of tears from her cheeks. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to remain there, at the grave, until the ghosts and memories of those whose deaths she had caused dragged her down into the soil with them, until her mind could finally be quieted of its constant reproaches, its nagging shame.

But the mission was not over. The Watchdogs remained a threat. No Inhuman would be safe while they kept up their campaign of hate.

As Daisy forced herself to her feet, out of the corner of her eye she caught the glimpse of a sliver of metal reflecting the light from the lampposts. She bent down again and examined the small lens that was pointing towards Jiaying’s grave, then cursed. 

_Coulson._

Of course he would be monitoring the grave. She should have known. Daisy crushed the small camera with her foot and dashed from the graveyard, half expecting the trees to bend in the wind as the Zephyr descended from above.

But there was nothing. The graveyard remained as still as ever.

Surely the algorithm—her algorithm—would recognize her face from the footage, she reasoned, and Coulson would come to Milwaukee looking for her. 

She couldn’t go back to SHIELD. Not like this. Not when it was almost over. But she had to stay and finish what she had come to the city to do. Daisy reached into her pocket and turned the wooden robin over in her hand.

She looked back at the cemetery, and tried to whisper, “goodbye,” but her voice caught in her throat.

A farewell was no use.

The ghosts would always be with her.


End file.
